Mark

Kristen,

Thank you for answering my question- it is helpful. But your whole answer is like is said earlier…historical revisionism. You say we need to think the ways the greeks did and i agree. Yet why is it that the early church did not understand all this the way you claim?

As for your ‘inclusive’ claims on certain words you must know that they are actually all masculine which means they are well…masculine. ‘Anyone’ is masculine, ‘bishop’ is masculine… In fact most of the whole structure is masculine with the exception of a few words like ‘ecclesia’ which is feminine. I agree some words can be gender inclusive but there needs to be proof to show this. You say ‘gyne’ is proof which is ironic really. I’m not sure any greek speaker would understand it the way you say, unless you can show me some evidence from the early writings?

Anyway i appreciate your thoughts, but it confirmed what i thought. There is actually no exegetical evidence to show that this is gender inclusive and that the whole argument is a hypothesis. If you have links or sources to show this is the way a naural greek would understand the grammar and the shift to gyne i’d love to see it!